2017 general election

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Buzz phrases

So we now have the start of the 2017 general election campaign and the buzz phrases have started to come out.

It is likely to be a very dirty campaign with lots of negative Buzz Phrases from all parties and many of these will be designed to stick in the minds of voters to sway them.

We will have the MP's doing the rounds of the TV News shows giving their daily talking points which will be littered the phases given to them by party election coordinators.

Here is the first one I have heard today:

19/04/17...Coalition of Chaos.........Theresa May....repeated on Sky News by Karen Bradley....

I doubt whether anyone in the Tory Party would describe their past seven years in Government as "a smooth ride", though in the nature of such things they put a gloss on their performance, as most people would.

A lot of things went wrong, but that could be said of any British government in living memory. The way you describe that depends on whether you favour the conspiracy theory or the cock-up one. My opinion falls into the second category, but in the past couple of years it has been increasingly difficult to rely upon previous experience of political matters to predict events. There has been a sea-change in the way business is conducted, governments act, and populations behave. It can't all be blamed on global warming.

Something is indeed going on behind the scene. We all sense that, but with little idea of how to evaluate either the cause or its likely result. The price of Liberty is constant vigilance. Pay attention to every "straw in the wind" - any one of which might be crucial or fatal. But in any case VOTE on Thursday. It could just be the last time we have that privilege.

Goes some way to explain why Theresa May only pops up where there is an "invited audience".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7iUYWMD77w

Need I say more?

There are times when stating the bleedin' obvious is entirely appropriate.

I have today played my small part in creating confusion for the enemy, but probably an academic exercise since where I happen to reside they don't bother to count the Tory votes, they just weigh them.

Yes - I, too, am certain to have a Tory MP once again in the morning.

But at least they don't canvass at my door any more. Not after a previous conversation I had with their representative....

This is no time for mirth...


(depositphotos.com)

I wonder how much better Corbyn would have done if the treacherous PLP had stood behind him, and shown support all along. All those Blairite / PLP tossers who plotted to oust him should hang their heads in shame this morning.......they may well be responsible for Labour not being able to form a majority government today.

Considering this, and the fact he has suffered more abuse, lies, and smears than any leader I remember by our odious press, his achievement is all the more remarkable.

Jeremy Corbyn: strong and stable.

How long will the country tolerate Theresa May: a woman of no substance.

.....as with the Brexit vote - which shouldn't have been enabled with such a slim majority, this election has proved how divided Britain is. I believe our chief concern should be serving our young people, realigning our priorities, and protecting essential public services. There is only one party who will do that.

All in all we have to see this as a positive result. The electorate seem to have realised, through Corbyn, there is another way and are signalling they are almost ready to try a different path.

I am glad that Corbyn will not have to thread his way through this utter mess - the wretched May deserves the task of wading through the difficulties of what she has created and to suffer what are likely to be further humiliations.

Once she has been stabbed in the back by her 'loyal' compatriots, it could be time for another chance for the electorate to have its say...

Phil,

Indeed! Would the electorate tolerate the Tories ousting May and foisting another unelected leader upon us? If that is what happens there could well be another GE within a year.

"Deck-chairs re-arranged, Cap'n. What was that about an iceberg?"

In February 1974, Tory PM Edward Heath called a snap election. It was totally unnecessary, as he had a working majority in a parliament which still had more than a year to run. Right up to election day (28 February), the polls showed a Tory lead, and one of them just a week earlier had Labour in third place behind the Tories and Liberals. The manifesto on which Harold Wilson fought the campaign was arguably the most left-wing one since 1945, even proposing subsidies on certain essential foodstuffs such as bread and milk.

The election resulted in a hung parliament. Heath hung around for a few days, trying to get the Liberals to support him, but Jeremy Thorpe had more sense than Nick Clegg showed in 2010 and declined to help.

Who says that history doesn't repeat itself?

oftenwrong,

Fortunately people are now re-engaged in politics - especially younger people, and have been energised by Corbyn's vision.

The lady above, and her ilk, are in a minority.

We now have real movement, and hope for positive change.

In Jeremy Corbyn's acceptance speech around 4 a.m. this morning, he deplored inter alia the gap which has emerged between youngsters and the old. He vowed to reconcile the divisions which have appeared in British Society.

As you would expect.

(thelinkup


"Some of my best friends are Irish...errr... to be sure, to be sure...  "

Chas Peeps wrote:Over the next three years we'll see whether I'm more oftenwrong than you are!  
 

The Green Party have taken a hit in vote share. Numbers in the north-east are down to the hundreds. This is because they took a moral decision to stand aside in some seats, campaign together in others, form non-aggression pacts across constituencies to prevent a Conservative landslide at any cost. The cost, to them as a party, has been pretty great. Typically, it will hit them in university towns, where their vote share was high for reason of a concentration of educated people, thinking about things. In Newcastle-upon-Tyne East, they were down nearly seven points. The very least the Labour party, and all of us, can do is to acknowledge that this was the result of decisive action on their part, and not just an unfortunate loss of interest in the environment.

May's voters get what they voted for - some real regrets to come I'm sure.
(no surprise)

Emphasising around Brexit ... being the party "getting the right deal" ... that "hard Brexit" has now become something unexpected for those confident voters.

sickchip wrote:I wonder how much better Corbyn would have done if the treacherous PLP had stood behind him, and shown support all along. All those Blairite / PLP tossers who plotted to oust him should hang their heads in shame this morning.......they may well be responsible for Labour not being able to form a majority government today.

Considering this, and the fact he has suffered more abuse, lies, and smears than any leader I remember by our odious press, his achievement is all the more remarkable.

Jeremy Corbyn: strong and stable.

How long will the country tolerate Theresa May: a woman of no substance.

.....as with the Brexit vote - which shouldn't have been enabled with such a slim majority, this election has proved how divided Britain is. I believe our chief concern should be serving our young people, realigning our priorities, and protecting essential public services. There is only one party who will do that.

All in all we have to see this as a positive result. The electorate seem to have realised, through Corbyn, there is another way and are signalling they are almost ready to try a different path.

My thoughts too Sickchip. Attacks from all directions,the media and previously from within his own party. I have no doubt he would have been PM now.

Conservative MP Crispin Blunt said "the electorate plainly have got it wrong" in the 2017 general election after it became clear Labour was on course to win seats from the Tories.

Asked for his reaction to the poll, the Reigate MP told The Surrey Mirror: “Like everyone else I was astonished. Some people say the electorate never get it wrong, clearly they have got it wrong. They've made it clearly tough for any party to form a government."


(Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1592: MERCUTIO: I am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses!)

The Book Of Jeremy Corbyn

And it came to pass, in the land of Britain, that the High Priestess went unto the people and said, Behold, I bring ye tidings of great joy. For on the eighth day of the sixth month there shall be a general election.

And the people said, Not another one.

And they waxed wrath against the High Priestess and said, Didst thou not swear, even unto seven times, that thou wouldst not call a snap election?

And the High Priestess said, I know, I know. But Brexit is come upon us, and I must go into battle against the tribes of France, Germany, and sundry other holiday destinations. And I must put on the armour of a strong majority in the people’s house. Therefore go ye out and vote.

Read on......
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-book-of-jeremy-corbyn

Any other grouping but the Tory Party would have thrown-in-the-towel by now, with the Queen's Speech due tomorrow but with no guarantee of acceptance by Parliament.
The Tories can still win the Queen’s Speech vote by a slim margin as long as the 10 DUP MPs don’t vote against it. If they abstain, Mrs May will still command a slight majority, but not even the Queen of the May will claim that as a mandate to rule, surely?

she seems desperate enough to do ANYTHING to hold on to office

Parliament now embarks upon the sysiphian task of governing without the agreement of the population as a whole.

One slip, and Jeremy Corbyn will be ready to let Mrs. May pass quietly into the history books as a hiccup in the process of governing a United Kingdom.

Well, on June 9th I put my polytunnel order on hold and ate so much vegetarian humble pie that I have struggled to fit through the door of the bunker I had built, hence the large gap in posting.

First and most crucially, thank God the Tories lost their majority. Second, all credit to Jeremy Corbyn, his depleted front bench and the rank and file activists in the Labour Party who ran a magnificent campaign to close the widest gap in opinion polls ever recorded from 20% to just 2% over the course of the General Election campaign.

Much as the Tories ran a disastrous campaign on so many levels, Labour's could still not slip or fall away and it did neither. The pressure was kept constantly on the Tories who eventually crumbled.

As a Green I have tried not to interfere in Labour's internal war even though my politics align far more closely with the Corbynites than with the Blairites. I was very pleased that the 2017 Labour Manifesto had adopted these 2015 Green Party Manifesto policies:
Rail nationalisation
£10.00 minimum wage
Robin Hood Tax
Fracking ban
All of these undoubtedly helped Labour to squeeze the Green vote from over 4% in 2015 to under 2% in 2017. A further factor in the Green vote shrinking was the number of seats Greens chose not to contest at local level as their contribution to a Progressive Alliance that definitely had some positive effect in the General Election even though not fully reciprocated by Labour and the Lib Dems. Two other widely reported factors in Labour's performance was the unexpected mobilisation of the 18-24 year old voter group and Labour winning back up to 50% of the collapsing UKIP vote, most of which was predicted to go to the pro-Brexit Tories.

The result was better than my wildest dreams, I called it wrong and I am very glad I did! What happens next is crucial as I still believe that the fundamentals for a rump UK becoming a Tory One Party State are still in place if hard Brexit is forced through (less likely now but not impossible), Scotland breaks away and the Boundary Commission changes go through.

Brexit is a poison chalice for whoever is in power as it requires either a choice to be made between two extreme positions based on a 52/48 split in the referendum or the adoption of a compromise position such as the EEA model which will end up pleasing fewer people fully. My best hope remains that the Progressive Alliance parties do wrest power from the Tories' grasp and produce a cross-party Brexit that keeps us in the single market and customs union, a compromise that would cement Scotland in the Union, protect the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland and protect the UK economy. The faster that decision is made the better as our economy is already bleeding out due to the uncertainty created by a split Tory Party in minority government. In power, a Labour led coalition would need to lead and ride the storm in the National interest. Much as I would prefer it, giving an option to remain in the EU as before will NOT unite this country and will leave so much lasting anger among so many, it would cause its own tensions and instability.

The other massive issue a Labour led coalition simply MUST grasp and lead on is electoral and wider constitutional reform which will ensure that no single party with only 42% vote share propped up by another with less than 1%, can command a 'majority' of the seats in Westminster. This must never be allowed to happen again. The Green Party got 1 MP with a vote share of circa 1.6% while the DUP got 10 MPs with less than 1% vote share. This is an intolerable situation that no true democrat should defend.

The window may be very narrow but it must be siezed. There are signs that Corbyn understands that no one party has all the best answers. I am flattered at the take-up of Green policies and hope one day they can be enacted, most likely through Labour. One day, I believe the basic income scheme will also be adopted but I'll take what we can get right now.

Greens will in my view remain at the cutting edge of progressive policy making within a framework of environmental sustainability and social justice. I have made my home in this party which has always been small but now feels smaller after this General Election and it is where I intend to remain. I do look forward to any chance of forcing the Tories from power by progressive parties working together - I still think this may be our last.

Many people find themselves in agreement with "Green" policies, but few have the appetite  to meet the inevitable cost in monetary terms.

As to "constitutional reform", that's not likely to come from either of the two main beneficiaries of FPTP any time soon, is it? Ask a Lib-Dem.

My dream has always been a socialist Labour/ Green alliance - in the 2015 election (when we had Ed Miliband, not a bad candidate) I was upset by the Greens actively campaigning against Labour, splitting the vote, and letting the Tories in.
Green policies in their pure form will inevitably have a cost but why I ask is it beyond the with of the leaders of the two parties to find some kind of acceptable compromise? (and a general agreement to collaborate)

The problem is, of course, the electoral system. If we had proportional representation, or even the alternative vote, we could all vote for our first preference (and second in the case of AV) and then wait for a coalition to be formed after the election.

The Green Party didn’t contest Brighton Kemptown on 8th June to avoid splitting the progressive vote. In any event, Labour gained the seat from the Tories with a swing of over 10%. It would have been good if Labour could have reciprocated and not contested Caroline Lucas’s seat of Brighton Pavilion, but as it turned out she increased her share of the vote by over 10% anyway. The problem is that if a party such as Labour wants to claim to be a national party, it has to contest every seat or it can be seen as ‘depriving’ its supporters of the chance to be able to vote for it. And there’s nowt as queer as folk; I’ve heard crazy reports of politically illiterate people saying they would vote Tory rather than Green if they weren’t able to vote Labour.

The Tory press would also have a field day if Labour stood down in some seats in order to facilitate the election of anti-Tory candidates from other parties. We’d be told by ‘The Daily Mail’ that Labour was acknowledging it was too weak to win on its own, and that the Tories were the only truly national party etc. I’m afraid that until a progressive government changes the voting system, tactical voting by individual voters is the best we can hope for, and I suspect that most people have neither the inclination nor the political nous to make that effective in general elections.